420 APPENDIX 



Plato saw that in language there were both good and goodness, 

 particular and abstract quality of good. He rightly inferred an 

 idea corresponding to the abstract, and recognised goodness as a 

 thought expressed by language. Upon this perception he founded 

 his theory of ideas. What is weak in that theory is the extension 

 of abstract thought expressed in language to thoughts which have 

 no abstract equivalents in language. He saw there was an idea of 

 goodness as apart from good ; so he said there was an idea of 

 horseness as apart from horse. Here, instead of language creating 

 thought, thought seeks to create a language not in use among 

 men. That is an extreme instance. But it might amply be 

 shown that thought, in all its complex stages, forces language in 

 order to obtain expression. The phraseology of metaphysics, from 

 Aristotle downwards, abounds in examples of the concrete being 

 warped to serve the abstract. After asserting this, I do not deny 

 the reflex action of language upon thought, the fettering of thought 

 by language which has once been fixed, and very often badly fixed, 

 to adumbrate some stage of painfully emergent thought. Meta- 

 phorical expressions of all sorts, indicating the shifts of thought to 

 find utterance, are instances. But these confirm the view that 

 thought is prior to language. 



COLOUR-SENSE AND LANGUAGE 



THE sense of colour cannot be judged by colour-nomenclature. 



People, in a primitive state of society, may be acutely sensitive 

 to colours, as indeed they have all their senses in fine working order, 

 and yet may have no names to denote the shades of hue. 



This is due mainly to the fact that colours are not connected 

 with utility. The brain is lazy, and only coins words which are 

 necessary. It can dispense with a wide vocabulary for pigments, 

 since these involve no grave concerns of life or business. 



Suppose the currency were established, not on varying weights 

 of precious metals, but on varying tints of red, blue, yellow ; then 

 we should soon find a nomenclature springing up to denote the 

 finest gradations of those colours. 



That is not the case. In the early stages of civilisation, colour 

 involves neither affairs of life and death, nor affairs of property. 



